“Do you mind my asking? Are you Christian?”
“No, no, I’m Jewish.”
“Messianic? Orthodox?”
I smile and shake my head. “Ha, no, I’m a West Coast Jew. I grew up in California.” I’m not sure Norman knows what I mean by this. “I’m not practicing,” I say, by way of explanation.
“Have you been to Israel?”
“I have, I studied Hebrew, too, I used to be quite conversational. I was a kibbutz volunteer for a year and a half after high school.”
“I hope to go some day, before Jesus takes me,” Norman says, pointing up towards the breaking clouds.
Norman is a stocky, healthy looking man in his late 60s, perhaps. His hair is white, his eyes are blue, he has a neat little comb of a mustache. He’s wearing a tshirt that has the words “If all else fails, follow instructions” over a picture of the bible with a halo above it. He is our guide for the day on a tour of Kalaupapa, the infamous leper colony on the island of Moloka’i.
We are having this odd conversation as we stand next to a rusting old blue school bus. The bus says “Damien Tours” across the front. Inside, taped to the industrial green metal over the window is a sign that says “No taking pictures of the residents without written permission.” Norman has already tapped the sign and read it to the small group of visitors on the bus. I can count on one hand the number of people we’ve seen, up close or from a distance. Kalaupapa is dying, not of disease any more, but from isolation and old age.
The cemetery is the first thing we see as we drive into town. It’s an open grassy area on the edge of a cliff. It’s divided into sections by religion, there are little markers facing the roadside that show you where the Catholics end and the Protestants begin, where the Protestants end and the Church of the Latter Day Saints begins, and so forth. At the end, there are a handful of stones that are the square obelisks of Japanese cemeteries. It’s my own fault Norman asked me about my religion, as I’d asked him if there were non-Christian populations in Kalaupapa.There were Native Hawaiians, practicing their religion, but according to our guide, they all converted. There was a Buddhist shrine serving the Japanese residents, but it’s hasn’t been in service for a long time.
“It seems weird to me,” I said to Norman, “that everyone is apart, even in such a small place. If you’re not using your body anymore, why does it matter who you leave it lying next to?” There is a lot I don’t understand about religion.
“It just shows you what that they thought about separation,” he answered. “I hope that’s not the case in the next world.”
We stop at the mini-market. Not for the last time, I wonder if I’m going to punch through the rusting bottom step as I leave the bus. There are snacks and water for those who have forgotten to bring enough. I buy a few postcards — they are expensive at one dollar each — and a bag of Cracker Jacks. There’s a stocky brown auntie watching TV in the entry way and a little Siamese cat with a Groucho Marx face. I say hello to the kitty and Norman asks me if I can guess the cat’s name.
“Groucho? She has a Groucho mustache.”
“No, that’s not it. Who else has a little mustache like that?”
Before a treatment was found for Hansen’s Disease, about 8000 people were shipped off to Kalaupapa. Any children born in the settlement were promptly removed — if they were lucky, back to healthy families, if they weren’t to orphanages where they waited for unlikely adoptions. The disease isn’t hereditary, but no one knew this at the time, so the kids were ostracized too, orphans with living parents. Kalaupapa was a heap of discarded humanity, the misunderstood and desperate dumped on the beach to fend for themselves.
I look at the cat and I look at Norman’s neat little mustache.
“Oh, no, it’s Hitler, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t name her,” says Norman, shrugging apologetically.
Norman is an expert on the missionary history of Kalaupapa. He can point to a row of pilings and tell you what stood there, how many occupants the building held, who ran it, where the borders of the property were. He can tell you about Mother Marianne and how she’d caught the eye of Hawaiian royalty, but she declined to go secular and stayed with her calling to minister to the sick. He can tell you about the saints who the churches were named after. He can tell you when King Kamehameha V signed the order to relocate patients with leprosy to the colony. He’s also got the movie sites down and he regrets that the local people who played roles in “Moloka’i, The Story of Father Damien” were not sufficiently credited.
In Kalaupapa, it’s easy to get the feeling history started on the day the missionaries arrived even though there are sites on the east side of the island that date back to 650 AD. Father Damien arrived in 1873. The bus parks near a heiau — Native Hawaiian temple site — but we don’t talk much about it and honestly, I forget to ask because I am knocked breathless by the view. The wind has blown all the clouds away and we are looking down the steep green cliffs of the east side. There are two smaller islands offshore, and then, across the channel, Maui. I wonder if Father Damien had the time or the inclination to appreciate the beauty of this place or if he was so overwhelmed by his work and the suffering of those around him that he could not see. The water is blue against the black stones, the color of the sky is reflected in the ocean.
We visit two churches. In one, the pews hold neat stacks of battered hymnals, boxes of Kleenex, odds and ends. On the back of a bench, above the little shelf where the books are stowed, there’s a typed note on browning paper, taped to the wood. “Do not touch or take anything from this pew. That means you… TOURIST!” Behind me, a statue of a saint holds up his rosary and casts his eyes towards the whitewashed ceilings. I feel completely unwelcome. What used to happen here? Did people really take hymnals as souvenirs? Did they hassle the residents for photographs and stumble into private gardens? We are tightly controlled for the entire duration of our visit, told where we can walk and where we can’t — the post office and the general store are off limits, we must not stray beyond the churchyard, the stones walls, and we have 15 minutes, only, for lunch.
There is a tiny bookstore where you can see a few objects that were customized for use by patients that were losing their fingers, their dexterity. At the back, there’s stamp station where you can get a National Monument stamp on your US Parks Department passport. Norman stands on the porch while the shoppers in the group buy souvenirs. When I come outside, he again asks me about my time in Israel and I give him the usual response I save for people I don’t know.
“It’s a very complicated place.”
“You know,” Norman says to me, “everything that’s happening there now was prophesied. It’s in the bible — both old and new testament.”
I blink at him, not sure what to say.
“We pray for Israel. It’s what we’re instructed to do.”
I hold my silence and wait. It has taken me a long time to learn not to argue complicated topics with strangers who have made up their minds.
“The Jews are God’s chosen people,” he says to me, insistently. “We pray for them.”
I am released from this awkward moment when one of the others in the group calls from across the lawn. There’s a mango tree bearing ripe fruit, the visitor wants to know if he can pick them. Norman gives him the okay and the tall man jumps up, grabs the branch and releases it. Mangoes fall to the ground around us. I pick up one up and take a bite. It is sweet and stringy. And then, I get back on the rusting blue bus. The step holds, one more time.
I was on Moloka’i as a guest of Hawaii tourism. My stay on Moloka’i – including the Kalaupapa tour was paid for by the Hawaii Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
“Is everyone ready?”
“Does it matter if I say NO?”
That’s the exchange I had with pilot Kyle just before the little eight seater headed down the runway. I looked at all the analog buttons and dials and the map of the island. I craned my neck to see over the nose of the little plane and I watched the white stripe down the middle. The Piper lifted up into the air, tipped its wings just a little this way and that, and the island was underneath us, red dirt and papaya, asphalt and grass.
For the second day in a row I ducked my head as I boarded a little eight seat plane. Yesterday, I left Oahu for Moloka’i on a tiny bird, today I flew down to Kalaupapa. What you might not know is that this is kind of a big deal, you see, I get motion sick driving around the block and I really hate to fly.
Only apparently, I don’t. The three short flights I’ve taken have been stunning, gorgeous. The low altitude means the white caps on the blue waters are close enough to see the spray, the crops are recognizable. And yes, the plane jumped a little when it moved out over the edge of the cliffs, but I expected that jump in my belly and then, it was all done, the stripe was back, we were on the ground.
“My breakfast is still inside me!” I said with great enthusiasm to Kyle the pilot, who indulged me as much as you’d expect from a pilot wearing flip-flops. And on the return trip, I thanked him before entering the airport. “I’m going to have to shut the hell up about how I hate to fly, aren’t I? That was amazing!”
“It’s not the size of the plane,” Kyle the pilot said, “it’s the skill of the pilot.”
I’m here as a guest of Hawaii Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. All my travels, stays, and transportation are sponsored by the HCVB.
I was getting ready to leave when the little guy dropped himself down next to me on the sand. He didn’t say anything or reach for me, he just sat down and started playing with his shovel and messing around with sticks. I couldn’t get up and walk away, he was so companionable and quiet, sitting there right next to me. We hung out for a while and then his dad, upon seeing that I’d gone to wipe the little guy’s hands with my towel, wandered over to make sure everything was cool.
“I saw him sit down with you and I think, oh, he’s okay, he’s over there with auntie. He hanai (adopt) you. Everything all right?” It was. The little guy, 22 months old, I learned, was called JP for short, and he seemed no more or less concerned with his dad now nearby. I asked JPs dad if he was teaching the little guy to swim and he started talking.
“I love standing in the water and thinking what it’s going to feel like when I’m back home. I’ll be in my house later and remember how great it was to be in the ocean today.” I tried to get my brain around this beach philosophy. I guess he was saying that today at the beach was going to be an awesome memory in about six hours.
But JP’s dad seemed supremely content in that very moment, too, squatting next to me on the sand. He looked like a complete badass, big muscled biceps and a camouflage bandanna on his head but his smile was brilliant and his face was open. And his little boy was so mellow, placidly pushing sand around, making almost no noise at all.
“You know,” he said, “I was surprised you stick around. Usually, my buddies, me, we come down to the beach and the tourists just disappear. Makes me feel bad.” I looked at my feet and back at JP’s dad. There was a pink butterfly kite flapping in the wind, caught in the tree branches overhead. JP had wandered down to the edge of the surf and was carrying back handfuls of wet sand. “You think you scare them off?” I asked, trying to believe him. “I don’t know,” he answered, looking serious, “I guess maybe so.” “That’s crazy,” I said.
Then we talked about Waikiki, where he grew up, (“IN Waikiki? Really?” “Yeah, in the city. I was a Waikiki mall rat!”) and about how there are so many Hawaiians in Seattle and about the natural spring that feeds cold fresh water into the bay at Dixie Maru on the west end of the island. We talked about the beaches on Moloka’i and how he had the day off so he was doing a tour of his favorite spots with his buddy (who was just over there, sharing snacks with two other tourists) and his little son.
When I got on the plane this morning, I wondered if Moloka’i could be as great as I remembered it to be. My favorite memory is of going to the west island and hanging out with two local boys who were drinking beer and fishing while everything started to glow from within as the sun went down. And this afternoon, when I was driving back to my hotel with Iz on the radio, I thought, yeah, it’s as great, it’s better because I didn’t imagine it the first time.
And now, here I am thinking about how much I’m going to love remembering today, later, when I’m back in Seattle.
I’m here as a guest of Hawaii Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. All my travels, stays, and transportation are sponsored by the HCVB.
What’s Hawaii without Elvis? Inside Bailey’s Antiques and Aloha Shirts. At Bailey’s, you can buy, among other things, a pale yellow aloha shirt with a ukulele on the back for a mere 3000 dollars.
On Kalakaua, Duke Kahanamoku perpetually raises your faded leis like an offering to the high rise hotels of Waikiki.
The educated person’s source for Hawaiiana and history, Tin Can Mailman. The vintage aloha and swimwear ads alone are worth the visit.
Ladies with leis in the “Boat Days” collection of photos documenting the golden age of cruise ship arrival to Waikiki. In the hallway of the Embassy Suites Waikiki Beach Walk.
My white ginger and yellow plumeria leis, in the hands of Princess Ka’iulani, in condolence for that crappy movie. Sorry, your highness, you deserved better.
The second in a series of ambulatory wedding cakes, also known as Japanese brides, in the lobby of the Moana Surfrider.
It is easy to dislike Hawaii if you’re in Waikiki. It’s a crowded not-quite-anywhere strip of hotels and shopping and pale unadventurous architecture, it smells of coconut tanning oil and second hand smoke and spilled mai tais. Homeless people stroll the avenue side by side with Japanese tourists sporting t shirts that make no sense. I didn’t like Waikiki the first time I was there, the traffic is crazy, the beach is crowded, and food is expensive. But it’s grown on me over time, I like the parade now, the unexpected islands of sanity, I like getting up early to go swimming with the old ladies and to watch the surfers, girls and boys, so pretty on the waves. Between the traffic and the sunburned crowds, Waikiki is a sort of imaginary Hawaii made real, grand hotels on the shore, beach boys and palm trees and the sound of the ukulele and tropical cocktails while the sun drops red into the Pacific.
I am thinking about this postcard Hawaii because on my last trip there, I watched a travel companion search for it and not find it. It was painful to watch such romantic expectations unfulfilled. The picture bride stands on the dock and sees that the mail order husband is so much older than expected. The mail order husband, fooled by the staged photograph is disappointed by a flawed complexion. The landscape is not green enough, there is no passion inspired by the broken black lava that tumbles into the sea. The tourist centers are tacky and worn, there’s a lack of glamor and grandeur. The natives don’t ceremonially tattoo visitors to claim them as family, nor do they drape us in leis as we arrive.
For about nine months out of the year I think about moving to Honolulu, Hawaii’s only real city. In this invented life, I have a small one bedroom apartment with noisy air conditioning and a tiny balcony with no view. There’s wifi, so I work for my mainland clients — the job market in Hawaii is difficult, at best — and I take the bus to the beach. I buy groceries at Foodland and I complain about my rent because it’s the same amount I paid for my modest yet spacious home with a yard in Seattle. Sometimes, my imaginary life is in Hilo, where I never quite feel like it’s my home. I’m a usurper, and outsider with a used Toyota and neighbor who left the mainland 20 years ago and is annoyed by my presence because I’m driving up real estate prices. My Seattle friends envy my choices because they think I’m living in paradise — they don’t see a parking lot of traffic and no room to breathe. In this imaginary life, I’ve embraced, with great difficulty, a sense of diplomacy that’s contrary to my nature because now, I live on a small island and I want to get along with everyone as best I can, or at least not piss them off. This is my imaginary Hawaii, a much more real place that I’ve built out of experiences on the islands. It’s less attractive than beach boys and sunsets, though all this is exactly what I picture when I think about living in Hawaii.
Whenever I board a flight for the islands, I am full of optimism and expectation. I know that the air will smell of salt and maybe, depending on where I’m going, flowers. I know that I will eat melt in my mouth tuna. I know that there will be pineapple and mango and avocado that make mainland produce taste like plastic. I know I’m going to get lost, driving my tinny rental car to a destination that’s on a street with a name that is all “k”s and “l”s and is and “i”s between two streets with names that are all “k”s and “l”s and “i”s. I will think this is pretty funny, though I’ll be annoyed if I’m alone because I need someone to read the signs and the map. I also know that I’ll experience something that blows me sideways, that fades my postcard vision of Hawaii even more — someone will tell me that the WalMart was built on sacred ground, I’ll be shocked by the amount of plastic on the beach, all of it washed clean and smooth by the ocean, I will learn more heart breaking history and have to go sit down in the shade devastated because I’ve learned about, oh, the bomb tests on Kaho’olawe, for example.
It’s weird to have a long term relationship with a place that isn’t my home. I’m keen to the flaws but part of my heart remains in the islands. I am thinking about this because I on my last trip there, I watched a traveler open the envelope and take out that staged photo, and, then, respond with such disappointment at the real thing. How can a place stack up against such oppressive expectations? Why would Hawaii want to be our Shangri-La, our Atlantis, our Bali Hai? It’s so much work, too much makeup, the lighting and the filters and the fiction to make a place paradise belies what’s really there.
And I’m good with what’s really there. I like the messy Chinese guy in flip flops and a tank top that makes my mango smoothie — he doesn’t know it, but he’s always my first stop in Waikiki. I like the Vietnamese kid who’s selling cheap bikinis and beach towels but has a sophisticated understanding of Pacific Rim politics and history. I like hearing sweet songs pour out of big Hawaiian guys who look like they could hurl you, single handed, back to mainland if they were so inclined. I like the bossy Philippino ladies at the farmer’s markets, I like hearing Hawaiian language mixed in with English and coming out of the mouths of white girls who look like California. I like the sudden rain chasing me under the nearest overhang or banyan tree, I like the annoyance of waking at five in the morning with the birds. I like walking down the crowded strip of sand that is Waikiki Beach with a coffee milkshake, while worrying about plastic and erosion and culture.
I’ve been building a small collection of vintage postcards from Hawaii. I love looking at them — better if they’ve already been stamped and sent, a scrawled message to Cousin Angela back in Iowa or Professor Kaye in Palo Alto. I love the idealized images, hula girls and outrigger canoes and luxury hotels flanked by palm trees. But they are not my Hawaii, they aren’t really anyone’s Hawaii, not anymore, probably not ever. I keep them at my desk and I flip through them when I’m dreaming of the islands. They remind me of what Hawaii is and, maybe more importantly, what she isn’t.
On the Mamalahoa Highway between Waimea and Kailua. I adjusted the levels some on this photo, but there’s no sepia post production filter on it. The sky was indeed that weird flat white, and the hills and fence posts weathered brown and gray.
